The course will use texts in English and will be held in English with the willingness of the teacher to provide explanations also in Italian. The first part of the course will be dedicated to the study of the fundamental elements of the systems of that welfare. The reading path will follow the conceptualizations of the most famous scholar of welfare systems, Gosta Esping Andersen. It will begin with a reconstruction of what can be defined as welfare, how it was born and developed in Europe and in the United States of America. Particular attention will be given to the concept of de-commodification, de-familization and coverage of social risks and how these processes accompanied the transformation of industrial and post-industrial capitalism. The written material, proposed by the teacher to students in class and always downloadable for free, will be a reference for students who will be asked to anticipate some readings to talk about them in class. Other material will be video available on Youtube. This first part will therefore aim to build with the students an analytical and conceptual basis for the study of welfare systems and regimes and how these are inserted in the economic and political systems of Western countries. Non-attending students can only refer to the texts indicated in this vademecum.

The second part of the course will instead be dedicated to the Chinese political-institutional system and the complex governance of the Chinese state in order to understand the dynamics of creation of public policies in China. Indicated readings will be suggested to attending students while non-attending students can refer to the indicated text. The main objective of this part of the course will be the understanding of the political-institutional system of China starting from the fundamental concepts that make it an extremely different context from the Western one and yet convergent with respect to it as regards public policies and the construction of the system of welfare.

Therefore, for non-attending students, the reading path will be proposed during the course, while non-frequent students will be able to decide between two alternative reading paths indicated in the bibliographic section.

FIRST PART OF THE COURSE

The Theory of Welfare State

FROM ESPING ANDERSEN THE THREE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE WELFARE STATES pagg. 3-71

The Legacy of Classical Political Economy

The Political economy of the Welfare State

The system/structuralist Approach

The Institutional Approach

Social Class as Political Agent

The Peter Baldwin Theory of Risk Group Advocacy

Rights and Decommodification

The Welfare State as a system of stratification

Welfare States Regimes

De-commodification in Social Policy

Pre-commodification and the legacy of Conservatism

The Liberal response to the dilemma of Commodification

De-commodification as Politics of Socialism

Welfare-states and De-commodification in the Real World.

Stratification in conservative Social Policy

Stratification in Liberal Social Policy

Stratification in Socialist Social Policy

FROM ESPING ANDERSEN SOCIAL FOUNDATION OF POSTINDUSTRIAL ECONOMIES

CAP 3, 4, 5 Social risks and Welfare States, The Household economy, Comparative Welfare Regimes Re-examined pagg. 1-94

The State in the welfare nexus

The misunderstood family

The Welfare Trial

Risk management and Welfare regimes

Family and Market Failures

The distribution of risks and models of solidarity

Peter Baldwin's Risks Groups perspective

Class Risks

Life-Course Risks

Intergenerational Risks

De-commodification Reconsidered

Familialism and De-familialization

Household economy and Wefafre production

De-familization throught Markets

Familialism and low fertility equilibrium

Comparative Welfare Regimes Re-examined

Conservative Welfare Regime

The Historical and Comparative Robustness of Regime Typologies

The Antipodean Fourth World

The Mediterranean Fourth World

The East Asian Fourth World

Families and Welfare Regimes

SOUTHERN EUROPEAN WELFARE STATE identity, Problems and prospect for Reform (Martin Rhodes)

Mediterranean Welfare Regimes compered peculiarities

AT THE ROOTS OF UNBALANCED ITALIAN WELFARE STATE (Ferrera, Jessoula, Fargion)

The grip of Cognitive Frames and "red-White" Political Competition

HOW AMERICANS SEE THE WELAFRE STATE: Joseph Stiglitz paper: The Welfare State in 21st century.

General Dicussion on Welfare State

SECOND PART OF THE COURSE

Teresa Wright Party and State in Post-Mao China

Sources of Stable Governance in China

Who serves the Party-State?

Maintaining Public Relations

Managing the Economy

Providing Goods and Services

Stable Authoritarianism?

No

By attending and studying this teaching, the student must have learned an analytical conceptual apparatus. Welfare systems will be used as a field of analysis and research to learn to understand the similarities and differences between systems of production of public policies and of the realization of these with the society and economy in which they develop. They will also have to demonstrate that they know how to apply these new concepts both to Italian cases which will be chosen as examples and to the decision-making process of the People's Republic of China which will be the subject of analysis in the second part of the course. In this part it will be the teacher's responsibility to highlight the numerous institutional and political differences of the Chinese context compared to the more familiar one of Western countries in order to increase the analytical capacity in different institutional contexts.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Teaching

The course and the teaching tools of the course, while always referring to the texts indicated, will be addressed, enriched and integrated by suggestions for reading or other methods of in-depth analysis based on the discussion that will be activated with the attending students and which will take into account their personal interests and curiosities.

Course books

ESPING ANDERSEN THE THREE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE WELFARE STATES pagg. 3-71

http://rszarf.ips.uw.edu.pl/welfare-state/esping-andersen.pdf

Gostha Esping Andersen Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies ONLY CHAPTERS 3; 4 5; 8

https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/_download/repository/ESPING_Social_Foundations_of__postindustrial_economies.pdf

Martin Rhodes SOUTHERN EUROPEAN WELFARE STATE identity, Problems and prospect for Reform 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13608749608539480

AT THE ROOTS OF ITALIAN UNBALANCED ITALIAN WELFARE STATE (Ferrera, Jessoula, Fargion)

https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/altri-atti-seminari/2013/paper-Ferrera.pdf

Joseph Stiglitz paper: THYE WELFARE STATE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

.http://policydialogue.org/files/publications/The_Welfare_State_in_the_Twenty-First_Century.pdf

WRIGHT TERESA PARTY AND STATE IN POST-MAO CHINA  Polity Press 2015, disponibile in formato kindle

Assessment

During the course, presentations on topics of their choice will be scheduled with the students and a topic for an essay will be agreed. The final interview, during the appeal, will focus on the topic of the thesis using the conceptual tools dealt with during the course.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

Non-attendants in presence registered in the online mode will be able to participate in specific lessons dedicated to them.

Course books

ESPING ANDERSEN SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF POSTINDUSTRIAL ECONOMIES 

https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/_download/repository/ESPING_Social_Foundations_of__postindustrial_economies.pdf

And 1 of these 2:

1) HEMERIJCK A. THE USES OF SOCIAL INVESTMENT Solo le seguenti parti: PART 1, PART 2, PART 3 (pp 4-159) PART 7 pp 339-376

https://www.sipotra.it/old/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/The-Uses-of-Social-Investment.pdf

or

2)  WRIGHT TERESA PARTY AND STATE IN POST-MAO CHINA  Polity Press 2015, available in kindle format

These texts can be replaced by the students not attending, agreeing with the teacher on alternative readings, as long as they are relevant, on the basis of their study interests. They will not necessarily have to be about China and can instead focus on other issues related to the welfare state. The teacher can suggest reading on the basis of the aforementioned interests. However, they will be readings in English.

Assessment

Non-attending students who have access to online teaching can arrange a presentation on a topic during the duration of the course. Even those who do not have this possibility will still be able to agree with the teacher the topic of a written thesis which in this case will be at the center of the final interview. However, it is still possible to have a simple final interview on all the topics covered in the didactic material

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.